Here you will find the most useful blogging and side hustle resources I use.
This collection of books and tools covers everything from productivity and mindset to affiliate marketing and building a profitable side hustle.
Affiliate links are used, meaning I earn a commission if you purchase anything, at no extra cost to you.
These side hustle resources include:
- The best books I’ve read.
- My top courses for blogging, affiliate marketing and more.
- Tools to help manage your social media.
- WordPress Resources: themes, hosting and SEO.
Side Hustle Books To Read
Productivity & Mindset
The above books are all available as audiobooks, so if you haven’t taken your free trial of Audible yet, you could get one of them free! Prime Members can get two free Audible books.
Starting a Side Hustle, Blogging, SEO
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Programs To Join
- Ultimate Bundles offers huge discounts and 40% commission on ebook & course bundles.
- Great free training for affiliates.
- Anyone can join.
- Products may not be relevant for your niche.
- ShareASale features many household-name brands, like Etsy.
- Anyone can sign up.
- Website is easy to navigate, but you do need to apply for each brand.
Website Tools
Hosting & Domains
- Lyrical is the best host I’ve used.
- £9.99 per month.
- Excellent customer service.
- Free resources, e.g. stock photos, site speed course, blogging tips.
- Use code INTERNETWAGES for 10% off.
- Cheapest option for hosting, starts at £2.39 / $3.95 per month.
- BlueHost is a popular choice for new bloggers.
- You won’t get the same customer service as a smaller company like Lyrical Host.
WordPress Themes
Read my blog post featuring 27 WordPress Themes for Lifestyle Bloggers to find out my favourite ones!
WordPress Plugins
- Yoast or RankMath for SEO.
- MonsterInsights. An excellent analytics dashboard.
- PrettyLinks for shortening links and making them ‘pretty’. Useful for affiliate links.
- WordFence. This one is essential for security!
- Smush. Compresses photos to make them load quicker.
- WPTasty offers several useful plugins for food bloggers and Pinterest users.
Learn How To Make Money With Pinterest
I earn money from ad revenue on my blog. But how do I get views? Pinterest!
Pinterest is a goldmine for traffic, but it can be a challenge to get started.
I’ve personally read many ebooks (and taken some courses) on Pinterest. I recommend Big Pin Energy above all others. Why? The Pinterest algorithm changed in 2020, and the strategies from this ebook still work. Big Pin Energy focuses on manual pinning and creating ‘fresh pins’, as well as teaching you how to optimise your Pinterest boards and profile.
Once you’re started with Pinterest, one way to speed up pin design is to use pre-made pin templates. I’m working on creating my own Canva templates for Pinterest, I’ll update this page when I release them!
I currently reach 28,000 monthly sessions and 40,000 monthly page views on my lifestyle blog, mostly thanks to Pinterest! My main blog Pinterest profile has consistently reached between 1.3 and 1.5 million views every month over the past year.
- An excellent scheduling tool for Pinterest.
- The communities feature is great!
- Get a free month of Tailwind with my link.
- TastyPins is a genius WordPress plugin for SEO and Pinterest.
- It optimises your images, and allows you to hide pin images in blog posts.
Where To Buy & Sell Digital Products
Have a read of my blog post featuring 15 Easy-To-Make Digital Products for inspiration if you’re not sure what to sell online.
Stock Photos
Unsplash
- Unsplash offer excellent free stock photos.
- Some photos are very popular, and ‘overused’. Avoid those on Pinterest.
- I’ve uploaded my own stock photos for you. Find them here.
IvoryMix
- Stunning styled stock photos, perfect for lifestyle blogs or creative entrepreneurs.
- IvoryMix offer many packages, including VIP bundles.
- You can also sign up for some free photos.
Lyrical Host
- Two great flat-lay stock photo bundles currently available at very affordable prices.
- Discount for Lyrical Host customers, prices start at just £4.99 for 75 photos, or £9.99 for 350 photos.
- Not a subscription, just a one-off package.
Graphics For Blogging, Marketing & Social Media
Canva
- Free & Pro Version.
- Pro version comes with great stock photos and additional features.
- Great for making ebooks, pins, printables, and social media graphics.
Entrepreneur Templates
- Every single Canva template you could possibly need for running a blog or online business.
- New templates every month, and they’re the best quality I’ve seen.
- It saves me so much time!
Adobe Creative Cloud
- A must-have for advanced photo editing.
- I have the photographer’s plan, which includes Photoshop, Lightroom and Spark.
More Resources & Tools I Use
- NordVPN. A VPN is so important for secure and private internet use.
- Grammarly. Of course!
- CircleBoom. I use this for managing my Twitter accounts. This includes scheduling tweets, removing inactive accounts, deleting old tweets, and finding good content to share.
- CreativeMarket. It’s THE place for WordPress themes, fonts, Photoshop mockup templates, logos, photos, and so much more. Plus they give away 6 free resources per week!
Skillshare
You’ve probably already heard of Skillshare, but in case you haven’t: it’s an online learning platform, filled with courses on pretty much any topic.
Skillshare’s courses are incredibly useful side hustle resources. I’ve learned so much from taking various classes to improve my skills.
You can learn all about SEO, digital marketing, and blogging with Skillshare. Alternatively, you could learn a new creative hobby like photography, music, or drawing.
Read my blog post featuring 10 Skillshare Courses to Improve Your Side Hustle!
Sign up for their 2 week free trial, and learn something new!
I hope you find these side hustle resources and blogging tools helpful. Make sure to explore the Internet Wages library for more in-depth tips and guides about making money online as a blogger or side hustler!
